Vygotsky proposed the concept of the zone of proximal development (ZPD) but did not elaborate the concept of "peer," leaving open the question of how capable a peer should be and how practice or outcome might differ according to a peer's level of capability. These issues were investigated in a sociocultural study of first-year Vietnamese…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which learning styles influence tertiary students' preferences for flexible delivery and assessment methods in higher education. Design/methodology/approach: A voluntary self-administered questionnaire was distributed within three core undergraduate courses. A total of 891 students…

The objective of this study was to analyse sex stereotypes in Spanish high-school students. Three hundred boys and girls from 12 to 17 years old participated in this study by completing a 41-item survey about their preferences for different body types. The survey was applied using a set of visual triggers. Analysis of data showed that body…

Critical race theory (CRT) has moved beyond legal scholarship to critique the ways in which "colorblind" laws and policies perpetuate existing racial inequalities in education policy. While criticisms of CRT have focused on the pessimism and lack of remedies presented, CRT scholars have begun to address issues of praxis. Specifically,…

In this study, the Felder learning styles inventory was administered to students who were non-English majors in a Chinese University. Descriptive statistics identified that participants do vary in their preference for particular learning styles with a great variety of learning style preferences distributed unevenly among the sample population. A…

Literacy today is characterised by rapidly changing and emergent forms of meaning making in the context of increased cultural and linguistic diversity, giving rise to the multiliteracies pedagogy of the New London Group. This article responds to these imperatives, reporting findings from a critical ethnography investigating the interactions…

We designed a classroom activity to foster students' understanding of what schemas are and how they function. We used a video of the instructor as an infant to illustrate how schemas influence gender stereotyping. Before the video, we told students that the baby was either a boy or a girl. After the video, students rated whether the baby would…

Those who try to deal with violence in U.S. communities and schools have tended to concentrate on suppression of violence, rather than real prevention, particularly as violence is associated with youth gangs. This discussion focuses on multiculturalism as a policy for reducing gang violence, rather than strategies that have been used to deal with…

Discusses issues related to the underrepresentation of minority teachers in social studies education. Suggests that many minority college students choose occupations other than teaching. Recommends that secondary history teachers develop student involvement in history through historical research and controversial issues. (CFR)

A study of predominantly white teachers participating in a multicultural education staff development program illustrated how social class and gender experiences informed their understanding of the social order they used to understand race. Following the staff development, few teachers substantially restructured their perspectives about racial…

Given the important role of the affective variables in the process of learning, this paper examines ways of overcoming negative effects (i.e. anxiety, boredom) of the contextual factors. Exemplifying the uses of humor through context-specific, purpose-driven jokes, it maintains that humor can be utilized to produce a resourceful, encouraging and…

This paper argues that instructors of child development should use literature to supplement theory and research in their courses. It is argued that literature elucidates psychological concepts with real life examples while deepening students' appreciation for the complexity and diversity of human development. Particularly effective in achieving…

The field of educational technology was built on the positivist, modernist search for a best medium towards universal communication and the teaching of predetermined behavior and thinking patterns. Once, this medium was thought to be motion pictures, then television, then programmed instruction, and today it is hoped that it will be instructional…

Learning to read and write effectively is a challenging task for many adults, particularly for those who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. In spite of concerted efforts by educators to facilitate the development of literacy skills in deaf individuals, most deaf high school graduates read English at roughly a third or fourth grade level as determined by…

Designed to gain a more thorough understanding of the cognitive processes involved and apply this knowledge in defining improved teaching strategies, this study of contour interpretation (referred to as "position fixing") required 12 subjects to locate their position on a map after being transported, blindfolded, to test sites where…